Australian tea producer, Madura Tea, says it has taken a significant step toward reducing its own impact on the environment: All packaging materials that were previously based on metallised OPP (oriented polypropylene) have been switched to flexible packaging paper.
Madura Tea decided on the new packaging solution in partnership with Gundlach Packaging Group and Koehler Paper. The company selected Koehler NexPlus Seal Pure MOB 72 gsm, which has a mineral oil barrier and offers protection against MOSH/MOAH. Having undergone several tests, the products are now available on the Australian market.
Gundlach Packaging Group and Koehler Paper provided Madura Tea with a range of test materials from the NexFlex product range.
“Koehler NexPlus Seal Pure MOB, which is made from 100 per cent virgin fibre pulp and is therefore suitable for contact with food, impressed everyone involved thanks to its outstanding barrier properties,” said Yevgen Zolotkovski, sales manager for Flexible Packaging Papers at Koehler Paper.
Rüdiger Brinkmann, senior sales manager at Gundlach, added: “Although it’s an uncoated paper, the printing results are excellent and highlight the new environmentally friendly concept.”
Koehler claims the NexPlus Seal Pure MOB is also heat-sealable, and its strength properties make it ideally suited for further processing on all commercially available packaging machines.
“Madura Tea has made the right decision in demonstrating its environmental responsibility by using recyclable materials from sustainable sources,” said Carsten Loemker, lead Engineering/Technology at Madura Tea.
The NexFlex product range is a collaboration between the R&D team at Koehler Innovation & Technology and experts at Koehler Paper. Together they developed a 100 per cent recyclable generation of flexible packaging papers, which they say aims to replace plastic in packaging by using barrier paper wherever possible. The range covers a broad spectrum, including standard coated and uncoated papers used in laminates for pouches, sachets, and other applications, which the company says makes them suitable for a wide range of packaging for food and non-food products.
The NexFlex product family also includes papers coated on one side with “good dimensional stability” and “high smoothness” (Koehler NexCoat), as well as uncoated paper with a natural appearance (Koehler Nex-Pure). The company points out that various flexible packaging papers from Koehler Paper were awarded a score of 19 out of a possible 20 points by the environmental service provider Interseroh, along with the “Made for Recycling” seal.
